Summary Results | July 2018
Approaches to
Data Center Transformation
Summary Results | July 2018
Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Survey Summary
▶Between May and July 2018, Gatepoint Research invited selected IT
executives to participate in a survey themed Approaches to Data Center
Transformation.
▶Candidates were invited via email and 118 executives have participated to
date.
▶Management levels represented are predominantly senior decision makers:
19% hold the title CxO, 16% are VPs, and 65% are Directors.
▶100% of responders participated voluntarily; none were engaged using
telemarketing.
Summary Results | July 2018
Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Executive Overview
Right now, many data center operations find themselves straddling traditional and modern
workloads. At the same time, the business model for IT is evolving toward IT-as-a-service,
which poses its own set of challenges. All this requires upgrades to data storage and
handling capacities, and modernized infrastructure. How are organizations navigating this
IT sea change?
This survey asks respondents to report:
▶ What is their current data center like?
▶ Which vendors’ products do they use now in their data centers?
▶ What is their upgrade strategy?
▶ What are their data center initiatives, and what are the motivating forces behind those initiatives?
Summary Results | July 2018
Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
What is your data center like?
44% of surveyed organizations have data centers that combine both traditional and modern workloads. 31% are focused specifically on traditional enterprise applications. A very few have a small, remote data center with edge locations.
Includes both traditional
and modern workloads,
including some cloud-
native apps
44%Specifically focused on
traditional enterprise
applications
31%
A mishmash of a lot of
different things
19%
Remote, small with
edge locations
6%
Summary Results | July 2018
Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Which of these vendors' products are you now using or
considering using in your data center?
Cisco dominates networking with 55% of survey respondents using their products. Dell EMC has the strongest position in combined server/storage. None of the six vendors have penetrated the hyper converged systems area; fewer than 4% of respondents say they are using or considering a specific vendor.
Networking Servers Storage(Hyper)converge
d systemN/A
Cisco 55% 2% 1% 3% 14%
Dell EMC 1% 15% 14% 1% 19%
HPE 6% 19% 3% 3% 32%
Lenovo 1% 6% 2% 0% 56%
Oracle 8% 5% 0% 2% 53%
SuperMicro
3% 3% 0% 3% 57%
Summary Results | July 2018
Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Which of the following technology problems are you facing?
Many respondents admit they have neither mastered IT-as-a-service (37%), nor are what they would consider proactive (25%). A relatively few (14%) say they are unresponsive and are constantly combating shadow IT.
37%
25%
20%
19%
14%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
IT-as-a-service? We're just not there
We're not able to be proactive
Our organization is siloed
We can't demonstrate the value of IT
We're unresponsive and
constantly combating shadow IT
Summary Results | July 2018
Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
How would you describe your data center modernization strategy?
39% responders admit their modernization strategy is to just update whatever they can “as we go along.” A fourth are actively comparing data center modernization solutions.
39%
25%
13%
10%
17%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
We're just updating
what we can as we go along
We're actively comparing
solutions now
We don't have any specific plans, but
would be open to hearing about options
We know we need to make changes, but
haven't investigated too thoroughly
Other
Summary Results | July 2018
Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
What are some of your data center initiatives in the coming
year?
Respondents’ top three data center initiatives in the coming year? Business continuity or data protection projects (51%), move to the cloud (44%), and technology refresh (41%).
51%
44%
41%
28%
25%
25%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Business continuity/data protection project
Moving to private or hybrid cloud
Technology refresh
Remote/branch office infrastructure update
Data center modernization/consolidation
Virtualization
Summary Results | July 2018
Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
What is the motivation behind your data center initiatives?
More than half of respondents are eager to optimize resources (59%). Reducing complexity and cost of old technology (47%) is the second most cited motivation. Increasing agility and improving manageability by eliminating disparate system are motivation for 39%.
59%
47%
39% 39%
30%
24%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Optimize resources Reduce complexityof inefficient, costlylegacy technology
Increase agility Increasemanageability;
eliminate disparatesystems
Mitigate risk ofsystem software
upgrades
Get a handle on data/ storage growth
Summary Results | July 2018
Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
How soon will you begin making changes related to
transforming your data center?
62% of those surveyed intend to begin transforming their data center within the coming year..
23%
11%
28%
17%
21%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
Immediately 1 to 6 months 7 to 12 months 13 to 24+ months Undecided
Summary Results | July 2018
Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Profile of Responders:
Job Level
All of those surveyed hold director or executive level positions in their organizations.
CxO
19%
VP
16%
Director
65%
Summary Results | July 2018
Copyright ©2017 Gatepoint Research. All rights reserved. This report is the sole property of Gatepoint Research and may not be used, reproduced or redistributed in any form including, but not limited to, print & digital form without express written consent of Gatepoint Research.
Future-ready, standards-based data center solutions from Dell EMC leverage your current
technology while seamlessly incorporating innovations tailored to your needs.
Learn more about Dell EMC's data center solutions and services